Page 42 of Blazing Hot Nights
I turned her chin toward me until I could stare into her deep, sparkling blue eyes. “That’s my only wish for you, too, angel.”
I held her gaze for the longest time, everything else forgotten as the air around us crackled with electricity I couldn’t harness. My lips found hers in a desperate attempt to contain it. When our lips touched, the opposite happened. The current shot straight through my soul, and my heart thumped once against my ribs. When she was the one to force my lips open with her tongue and step inside to dance with mine, it thumped again.
I slid my hand into her hair and grasped her head in my hand, tugging her head to the right until I could capture her bottom lip with my teeth and drag it between them, making her moan. The sound shot fire through me this time, and I went back for more, kissing and sucking until we both had to break it off to gasp for air.
My hat was on the ground, knocked off by her hand when it went into my hair. “My heart just beat for the first time in five years,” I told her. “Tell me you felt it too.”
She nodded as she stood slowly from the bench. “I felt it too,” she whispered, “but it can never happen again. This,” she said, motioning between us as she backed up, “has to stop happening. We can be neighbors and friends, but we can never be more than that.”
I caught her hand and held onto it like a lifeline. “Why not? What’s so wrong with us being more than that?”
“I killed your wife!” she shrieked, yanking her hand from mine. “I’m the reason you lost your soul mate, and you should never forgive me for that! I should have been the one to die that day, not her! I don’t deserve to be kissing you!”
Before I could blink, she ran headlong toward the parking lot, her boots kicking up gravel and dust behind her. I stood slowly, my head spinning, my stomach on fire, and my heart pounding. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the fever pitch in which she said it told me she believed every word. I started walking toward the truck, and her words ran through my mind again.
I killed your wife. I should have been the one to die that day. I don’t deserve to be kissing you.
The idea that she believed that forced my feet into a jog. I knew she suffered from the memories of that day. I knew she had diagnosed PTSD because Dawn had told me that a few years ago. What I didn’t know was why she thought she was to blame for Callie’s death.
When the truck came into view, I could see no sign of her. There was nowhere else for her to go but up the road, but I couldn’t see her there either. My heart paused in my chest. “Heaven!” I yelled as I ran for the truck. I had to find her. She could run, but not for long before she would fall over on the road’s shoulder and hurt herself.
I put the truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot, cursing the heavy trailer keeping me from going too fast down the small two-lane road. I had to find her before she did something stupid, and I never got to kiss her again.
***
My lungs burned like fire, and I had to stop running or risk falling over. My balance was too precarious when I was tired to risk falling and hurting myself before I got clear of Blaze. I had to find a truck stop so I could call Dawn and have her come pick me up. Logically, I knew that was asking a lot of her, but I couldn’t ride all the way back to Wisconsin with him.
I bit back a sob as I walked up the road, wishing there were more trees to shade me from the sun. Trees would also hide me from him when he started looking for me. He’d be coming down that road sooner rather than later if I knew Blaze McAwley. He might be a jerk sometimes, but he was nothing if not chivalrous.
I had probably just blown the land deal, but maybe we could still work something out through our lawyers. He needed that pasture to expand, and I needed the cash to reinvent Heavenly Lane. If he didn’t want it, I was sure I could sell it to someone else, but that would be harder and take much longer to accomplish.
I put my hand to my forehead and wiped the sweat beading there. “You’re so stupid, Heaven. No wonder your ranch is dying, you’re always screwing things up.”
I glanced around for the first time, the fact that I was alone on a highway in a state where I didn’t know anyone or recognize any landmarks finally started sinking in. That only made my point. I was stupid. Not that I had much choice. I took my phone out and held it up, searching for a signal so I could pull up my mobile navigation app. I knew what direction to go, but I didn’t know which road to turn on.
The hum of tires reached my ears from somewhere behind me. I moved over even further off the side of the road to be safe. The car slowed, and I closed my eyes, swallowing hard when I heard him yell my name.
“Heaven! Get in the truck,” he called as he pulled off the highway on the other side. “You can’t walk out here alone.”
“I’m doing just fine, Blaze. I’ll find a truck stop and call Dawn.”
He nudged the truck forward to keep pace with me but didn’t pull back on the road. “That’s not going to happen, Heaven. It’s dangerous out here. You could get hit by a car or attacked by any number of wild animals. You’re tired, and your shoulder is bothering you. I can see it in the way you’re holding your arm.”
I would tell him he was wrong, but he wasn’t. The trip out here had been harder on it than I anticipated. I needed a hot shower and a massage from his magic hands. I wasn’t going to get one of those for hours and the other one ever again.
“You don’t know everything, Blaze McAwley!” I yelled back, stomping up the road.
“No, I don’t,” he agreed, the truck easily keeping pace with my mad dash through the gravel. “But I do know that much. I also know that you didn’t kill Callie.”
“That statement is proof you don’t know anything!”
“Heaven, I’m not going to argue with you in the middle of a highway in South Dakota. Get in the truck. I’ll drive you back to town. If you want to call Dawn, I won’t stop you, but at least I’ll know you’re safe. It’s not safe out here. Not to mention, the sun is shining hot, it’s nearly three in the afternoon, and you don’t have any water.”
I hesitated on the next step. Blaze was right. It was hot out. I was hot, tired, sad, angry, sore, and, if I was honest with myself, shattered. This day, the day I expected to be anything other than what it was, had made me wonder too many things. It had made me wonder if I would ever find the answers to the questions I had been asking myself for years. Questions without easy answers.
I was like a damaged windshield. I never broke all the way through, but there was no way I was going to fix all the cracks. My right hand rubbed at my bad shoulder, and I grimaced. While I was distracted, the toe of one boot caught the heel of the other one, and down I went.
Before I could push myself up, he was lifting me and jogging across the highway to the truck. “Why are you so stubborn? Did someone spill the stubborn jar on you during your creation?”
